The Ghosts of Varner Creek (3 page)

After my dominoes and talking with my neighbors here I head back to my room. There’s a couple of little girls visiting their great grandmother in room 34B, Miss Fitzgerald’s room. She’s ninety-three years old and will probably never leave her bed again, but she’s happy today and basking in the glow of her own reflection in the faces of her great-grandchildren. One of them is wearing a ballerina outfit and doing a little twirl with her arms curved over her head. I hear her Mama say something about a recital later. A shadow in my memory stirs a little bit but I tell it to stay in its corner.

There’s a little television in my room my son set up for me. I have to get the nurse to work it for me, though. All those little buttons give me a headache trying to read ‘em. I press my call button and in she comes. It’s not the young one I like looking at but Ms. Rita, a large Hispanic woman with a smile so big it like to blind you.

“
How you doin’ today, Mr. Mayfield?” she asks, molars just a sparklin‘. Either her toothbrush must be huge or she must spend half the morning just brushing her teeth.

“
Oh, you know. Same ole, same ole, I reckon. Still alive and here, ain’t I?”

“
Sure enough, Mr. Mayfield, and not looking like you’re going anywhere anytime soon. You want your Wheel of Fortune on?” She knows at three o’clock I watch my Wheel of Fortune. Chuck Woolery‘s gone, but that Pat fella, he's all right. And that new lady what turns the letters, Vanna or whatever, she's definitely all right. She's got better legs than even that young nurse I like so much.

“
Sure do, Miss Rita. Gonna see if somebody don’t win a car again today. That young girl yesterday got herself a brand new Volvo.” It was silver and worth nearly as much as I used to make in a year, all for guessing the word Superintendent.

“
Shoot, I wouldn’t mind winning me one of those new cars, Mr. Mayfield. Mine, I got, is on its last leg, I tell you what. If that husband of mine don’t find himself a job soon to get me a new car it’ll be him that gets tradin’ in, Ha Ha!” She laughs and for a moment there I’m dazzled by her brilliant smile like a deer caught in headlights, “You play along now and see if you don’t best those contestants.” She sets the channel and is off to see my neighbor who‘s moaning a bit louder than usual. I think there’s a whiff of his bed pan floating in. I wonder what they’re feeding him in that tube of his, cause Lord whatever’s going in, it do smell something terrible coming out.

I hear Miss Rita in the other room, "Wheeew, Dios mio!"

Luckily, I still got pretty good control of my bowels. I get the flatulence, but that’s not so terrible, ’cept maybe that one time I farted in my sleep and it smelled so bad I woke myself up. I rolled over ready to complain to Helen about eating her dried apricots before coming to bed again, but she wasn’t there, and that meant the gas was mine. There’s just something uniquely unpleasant about waking up to a smelly fart and then realizing it’s your own.

That’s not as bad as finding it had company, though. I’ve had one or two accidents. No sense being embarrassed about them, old plumbing’s going to have some leaks now and then. We used to have a smart-ass woman working here and she came in one morning when I had an accident. When she got up close to me and caught the smell she asked, “Damn, Mr. Mayfield. Did you crap yourself?”

I’m eighty-seven years old, damn it. I’m doing good just to wake up each morning, so I looked her right in the eye and said, “Of course I crapped myself, woman. You think I smell like this all time?” Like somebody else had crawled in my bed to have themselves a bowel movement. Besides, it was the damned canned fruit they served the night before. Stuff is worse than ex-lax. That lady, she don’t work here no more, though, and I’m glad. She neglected some of the bed-ridden folks and they got bed sores somethin' awful, so they fired her. Everybody else here is mostly nice and they treat you right.

I spend the rest of the day watching television until it's time for supper and then bed. I got this unsettled feeling, though. Something about today has my thoughts churning and won’t calm down. The air conditioner is whirring full blast and the moaner next door is now soundly asleep, so I should be down like a baby right now, but I’m not. I think it was the little girl in her ballerina outfit. There was something about her that sent a shiver through me. It’s an old memory, but it never stays in its corner like I tell it to. I roll around a bit and listen to the air conditioner’s comforting consistency until I start to feel heavy.

I think I’m dreaming. I have this sensation, like I’m holding on to an invisible fishing pole and somewhere out there a fish is nibbling at my line. It’s a little tug, then another, and then Yank! It pulled the line so hard I went tumbling in right after it. It feels like I’m drowning in something dark, but before I can panic I feel this
pop
! It was like a bubble bursting except I was the bubble and now my body's in one place and I'm in another. I’m looking down at myself and can see someone standing by my bed. It‘s that ghost of a woman with no face. She‘s standing over my body, but she‘s not looking down at it. She‘s looking up, like she can see me floating around the ceiling. At least it seems so. Her head is tilted towards me but with no distinct features it's only an assumption on my part. I don't have long to wonder, though, before she’s gone, and so is everything else, the room, the building, the town, the world, it's all disappeared. Or should I say I've disappeared, because I have no idea where I am. There’s nothing around me but blackness and it’s pulling me down and down into its depths like a hidden magnet pulling a paper clip. I can feel myself somehow being propelled, but since there’s nothing but pure blackness all around it’s hard to tell how fast I’m moving, or really if I’m moving at all. I try to breathe but there’s no air. It's calm, though, a peaceful nothingness. I’m in an ocean, black as emptiness, and I know there’s nothing but the watery stillness above and below me, everywhere. My eyes are open but I see nothing but the darkness, and then the obvious realization sets in . . . I just died! So this is what dying feels like. Well, it wasn’t exactly unpleasant, just a bit odd. You feel that little tugging sensation right before you pop out of your body, get one last look goodbye, and then whoosh, you’re here. But where here is I ain’t got a clue. And where I’m going if I am really being pulled along in this nothingness is another mystery.

Somewhere above I imagine there are waves licking the air, but I’m miles away down in the deep and it’s quiet and calm with no sense of time. I don't know if I've been here seconds or hours. The unusual stillness reminds me of the hotel room so long ago, except it’s peaceful here. There’s no torrent of terrible emotions pressing in on you, just the quiet solitude.

I’ve been like this a while, lost in this place where my thoughts alone exist. It’s like being on a long train ride at night. You feel yourself moving, but you get so used to the sensation it almost becomes a lullaby. After a while something seems to change. Part of the blackness is becoming illuminated and I‘m not alone. I think someone is coming towards me in this black sea. A dim green light that I remember from my childhood grows in front of me, and then I can see a hand. I feel it as it reaches out for me and touches me, closing around my own hand and then pulling me even faster towards this unknown destination. I try to see who is holding on to me but can barely make out a small figure. I can’t see exactly who it is, it’s still too dark. I think she’s looking at me. Is she smiling? As we move I can make out just a bit of her. Something about her looks so familiar to me, but I’m so out of touch with my senses from this strange journey I don’t think much about it.

Down the rabbit hole I go. I wonder if I’ll end up on a heap of dry leaves like Alice. Mother had just started reading that story, I remember. But why am I thinking of that now? There’s a light in the darkness. It’s so far away at first that I think I’ve imagined it, but then it sparkles like a jewel. We’re getting closer to it. There's a bright white glimmering as though a giant diamond were ahead of me, dotted with dancing sparkles like glitter tossed up into a clear night sky but seen reflected in a rippling pool, and it’s getting brighter. It’s coming much closer, I realize. I remember the near-death experiences I’d heard people talk about on the television or in books, and I’m struck with the notion that this might be what they saw. This light ahead of me is beginning to look a lot like a light at the end of a very long tunnel. It’s so bright now I can barely look at it and then it’s light all around me, like we just emerged from a tunnel into a world full of nothing but light. And there are faces here. Do I know them? I’m still so dazzled from the brilliance of this place I can’t make them out. Someone is still holding my hand. I look and through the brilliance I can see next to me a girl in a pink dress kind of like the one Miss Fitzgerald’s great granddaughter was wearing. I struggle to see her as the light is still so blinding. Well, there may be no rabbit and no pile of leaves, but darned if there isn’t an Alice. She’s a young teenager of about thirteen with black curly hair and she’s wearing a cutout crown made of folded paper with sparkles on it. In her other hand is a little paper straw that has a pink star on top of it that spins around. It’s covered in sparkles, too. She seems happy, very happy. And her happiness is spilling out and washing over me, filling me with happiness, too.

She tells me, “Sol! Isn’t it pretty? I’ve been waiting for you for so long.”

My mind sways. Who is this girl?
I want you to have it because you remind me of Alice.
Those were Miss Thomas’ words.
Down the rabbit hole. Then what was it? Oh, yes. The Pool of Tears. Mother had just started reading from The Pool of Tears.

“
You don’t have to feel bad for me anymore,” says the girl. “I’ve been so happy here and never alone. Now I’ll be even happier because you’re here now.”

The light gives way and a perfect blue sky appears above us. Grass tickles my feet as it pokes out between my toes and grows all around us. The world takes shape around her and me as she holds my hand. And in an instant we’re standing next to the creek where we both grew up. I’m twelve again, barefoot in my favorite pair of overalls that I used to have. My hair is thick and wild on my head and my body feels so light I could jump a hundred feet straight up. There’s a cool breeze and it’s the prettiest day I can ever remember. We’re standing on the bank of a creek hand in hand and she’s looking down into the water as it flows along. I look, too, and I see that I know this place. This is the place that has hidden in the back of my thoughts most all my life. And then I know who the girl next to me is. Of course I do, the obviousness crashing down on me. I’m still happy, but I also feel tears fill my eyes and begin to run down my cheek.

She looks at me with sweetness, “Don't be sad. I only wanted to come here to thank you.” She holds me tightly and I‘m surprised at how real she feels next to me. “You don’t have to cry for me, Sol, not ever again.”

I look at the creek, remembering how cold its waters could be. “I kept seeing it in my dreams,” I tell her. “This place was always following me.”

“
I know. But you can let go now. I never wanted you to have to go through all those things, see all the things you have.”

“
It’s been more than memories haunting me,” I say.

And in her eyes I can see that she does know what I’m talking about. “I’m sorry I scared you.”

I remember the first time I ever saw a ghost. It was my sister, Sarah. “It’s all right," I tell her, "I know you didn't mean to."

“
I was scared and I just remember wanting to find you, and then somehow I did. I was in the dark, something trying to pull me away, but I wanted to stay because I didn’t know what it was or where I was going. I just kept thinking about you, and how much I wanted you there with me. You were the only one who still made sense to me. It was like an onion, though, layers on layers from me to you, and I couldn’t get through them all. I could see you, but you couldn’t see me.”

“
But then I did see you,” I remind her. She nods. “I saw you, and I saw what he’d done.” My tears were gathering, but like I’d done with that memory so many times before, I send them to a corner.

That was when it all began, with the ghost of my little sister finding me in the darkness. Seeing her in the same dress she wore that last day makes me realize how different she’s become. This is not the same girl I knew in life. She’s not stuttering anymore and her words carry lucid thoughts she was never able to find in life. She even looks like any normal girl. She’s still Sarah, but she’s the complete Sarah I’d always imagined she could be, always hoped she’d become. “You look so different now. The same but not."

“
You see me like you remember me, but also how I am now. People don’t have to stay broken here. This place can mend anything if you let it.” She takes a step back and looks me over. “You look like I remember, but also different in a way. Have you been sad all this time?”

I don’t answer. I thought about it all the time, even in my later years, but I got used to pushing it behind a closed door.

“
It’s because of what happened, isn’t it?” she asks. Still, I say nothing. Sarah spins around in her pink dress. It was handmade by our Mama. “Do you remember it?”

I look at the dress and say, “Of course. I remembered it and you every single day.”

She holds up her pink straw and blows on it with a smile to make it spin around. The sparkles dance just like I remember, and she whispers to me, “It’s okay, Sol. I know why you’ve been sad. It’ll be better now, I promise.” Somewhere inside of me a door that has been locked for many years slowly creaks open, and Sarah and I both walk through to the place where I’d hidden so many of my childhood memories.